Saber v Conocer

In Spanish we’ve seen how there are to ways to say ‘to be’ – Ser and Estar.

In the same way there are two ways to say ‘to know’ – Conocer and Saber, as we saw in class though both mean ‘to know’ in different ways.

We use Saber to talk about how we ‘know’ knowledge or skills for example to know how to swim (Saber nadar) or to know how to speak Spanish (Saber hablar el español).  You could also know facts, for example (Saber la historia de Irlanda).

Conocer is used to talk about how we know someone, as in to know Mark (Conocer a Mark). Yet it is also used to talk about how you know a country, city or town (conocer Irlanda, conocer Dublín, conocer Stillorgan) ….. BUT BE CAREFUL…. it does not mean that you know about the history of the town or facts about the town but more about where things are in the town and what you can do to spend time there. Click on the link below for a review of Saber v Conocer.

CLICK HERE TO REVIEW SABER V CONOCER (AND THERE’S A BIT ON PEDIR V PREGUNTA BUT YOU CAN IGNORE THAT FOR NOW IF YOU LIKE)

SpanishDict.com Conocer v Saber

YOU CAN ALSO PRACTICE HERE. IT MIGHT BE A BIT MORE DIFFICULT BUT HAVE A GO.

El Imperfecto

The past tense in Spanish is little more difficult than in English. Were we use one past tense Spanish uses two, we’ve already seen one in the Preterite (for a quick review click here). Now we’re going to look at the Imperfect which is used to talk about things you ‘used to do’ (I used to live in Cork, we used to have a dog) or to describe things in the past (the sun was shining, the birds were singing).

We’ll come back to the differences between the two past tenses in more detail but for now lets concentrate on how you form the imperfect. Click on the links below for a review of the imperfect and some practice exercises.

Review of the Imperfect with a practice quiz at the top. 

Another review with another quiz.

Flashcards with verb endings for -AR and -ER/-IR verbs plus the irregulars

A challenge game to practice the forms of the imperfect. The higher the points, the harder the question.

A gap fill activity.

3rd Year Revision: The Preterite Tense (Past simple)

Below you will find a few exercises to help you revise the Pretérito Indefinido (and prepare for the mocks).

Review of the Preterito Indefinido Regular Verbs with some practice quizzes in the column on the left.

Some Irregular verbs from the same site with more practice quizzes. Remember that Ver is almost exactly the same as Dar.

The -gar, -zar and -car verbs can be reviewed and practiced here.

With even more irregulars here .

This one is the MOST IMPORTANT of the Irregular sections. So learn it.

More practice here:

Click here for a practice crossword with the irregular verbs.

Another practice exercise with Regular verbs can be found here.

And another.

A fill in the gaps exercise here.

Tha is loads to keep you going and don’t forget to refer to Unidad 7 in particular of your text book (P.79-94). Also you can review the most common irregulars at the back of your book.

Possessive Adjectives

Click here for a good review of the possessive adjectives with a bit extra about possessive pronouns. And you can do the practice quiz by clicking here and here.

Click here to review some flashcards of the possessives with family members and other vocab.

Another good review can be found here, with a follow up practice quiz here.

The Present Perfect

This is another Spanish past tense that basically it’s the equivalent of the tense ‘I have done something’ in English and is made up of two verbs as in English, those being the verb to have and then the ‘past participle of another verb i.e. to eat = eaten, to dance = danced, to speak = spoken.

In Spanish though we use the verb Haber + past participle and so it works like this. NOTE that we do not use Tener in Spanish for this tense:

Haber = to have (done something)

he                                                                                      hablado (from hablar)
has
ha                                  +          Past Participle         comido (from comer)
hemos
habéis                                                                             vivido (from vivir)
han

As you can see to form the past participle you simply remove the -AR from the verb and add -ado, or removed -ER/-IR and add -ido.

There are also a number of irregulars you need to be aware of:

abrir (to open) – abierto (open)

cubrir (to cover) – cubierto (covered)

decir (to say) – dicho (said)

escribir (to write) – escrito (written)

freír (to fry) – frito (fried)

hacer (to do) – hecho (done)

morir (to die) – muerto (dead)

poner (to put) – puesto (put)

resolver (to resolve) – resuelto (resolved)

romper (to break) – roto (broken)

ver (to see) – visto (seen)

volver (to return) – vuelto (returned)

Below are a series of links which summarise the tense well and allow you to practice with it:

Spanishdict.com gives a decent summary here but it doesn’t specifically mention the irregulars

There is a good summary from studyspanish.com here of the past participles.

And more from studyspanish.com here on the present perfect tense itself. Be sure to do the practice quizzes available on the left hand side.  

Here’s a good practice exercise on BK Nelson.

6 Curso – The Spanish Pronouns

Here is are some links to tutorials and exercises on the Object Pronouns in Spanish. Although the rules aren’t the trickiest there are a few things to remember so the best thing to do is practice as much as possible. Loads here to keep you going.

We’ll start with the tutorials:

http://www.studyspanish.com/tutorial.htm – Have a look at Unit 4 on this page which is all about the Objects Pronouns in Spanish, there are quite a few parts to it but it is well explained in a progressive manner. Each part has it’s own free practice quizzes.

http://www.spanishdict.com/grammar – Another good review site with some practice quizzes. Just scroll down to the Pronouns section and browse through the list.

http://www.ver-taal.com/gr_pronombresCD.htm – A concise review of the Direct Object Pronouns. It’s in Spanish but don’t let that put you off as the language is quite staightforward.

http://www.ver-taal.com/gr_pronombresCI.htm – And from the same site a review of the Indirect Object Pronouns.

Excercises:

http://www.colby.edu/~bknelson/SLC/DO_IO.php – A series of exercises on Direct Object Pronouns from BK Nelson.

http://www.colby.edu/~bknelson/SLC/DO_IO.php – And some on the Indirect Object Pronouns.

http://www.ver-taal.com/ej_pronombresCDCI1.htm – From Ver-taal.com an exercise to practice between the DO and IDO pronouns.

http://www.ver-taal.com/ej_lugarpronombres2.htm – This one tests your ability to locate the pronouns in sentences.

http://www.ver-taal.com/ej_lugarpronombres1.htm – And another

There is a lot here but as you saw today in class it can be confusing and the best way to deal with this is practice.

5 Curso: Por v Para

Por and Para can cause a lot of problems for the English speaker, especially when we pigeon hole both words as meaning ´for´. In reality the uses of each can be far more nuanced, specifically ‘Por’.

I would advise you to focus specifically on the uses of ‘Para’ though as these are fewer and in my opinion are slightly more logical, you can then almost assume that most other uses are served by ‘Por’ (it is also advisable to learn some of the set expressions and idioms used with ‘por’, they are many)

Have a look at the following links:

A decent review of the uses of both from Studyspanish.com

Another summary from Spanish.about.com

A nice little discussion on the subtle differences sometimes seen between Por and Para, particularly when speaking of motives. 

 

Some practice exercises:

The ever reliable BK Nelson

Por v Para 1

Por v Para 2

Loads of links to various exercises here

2 curso – The Future Simple – I will do ……

We use this Future Tense in Spanish to talk about things we ‘will‘ do and not things we are definitely ‘going to’ do.

Again it is not too difficult and there are only a few irregular verbs. Click here for a good summary of how to form the Simple Future or check the rules in your book.

*** The important thing to remember is that with this tense you DO NOT remove the -AR, -ER or -IR from the Infinitive of the verb. You just add the endings to the infinitive. ***

Click the links below for some practice:

Spanishdict.com – Future Tense Regular Verbs – don’t forget to do the practice quiz by clicking on the green button

Spanishdict.com – Irregulars 

StudySpanish.com Future Tense – there are practice quizzes in column on the left.

AprenderEspanol – Muchos ejercicios aqui – more practice exercises here.

2 Curso – The Immediate Future Tense

This is probably the easiest tense to learn and use in Spanish as you only need to know how to conjugate one verb ‘Ir’ and there are no irregulars.

Remember our 3 steps to forming the Immediate Futre:

Step 1: Conjugate the verb ‘Ir’ depending on WHO is doing the action

Voy             –               I am going …..
Vas              –              you are going ……
Va                –             He/she is going …….
Vamos       –            We are going …..
Vais            –            You (pl) are going ……
Van            –             They are going ……

Step 2: Add an ‘a’.

Step 3: Add the infinitive of the verb that is going to be done.

Voy a bailar     –     I am going to dance
Vas a comer      –   You are going to eat

Click here to take a practice quiz from SpanishDict.com.

This is the webpage I used in class to go through the tense, StudySpanish.com

Here is a more advanced exercise in Spanish for those that feel ready for it. Click here.

YOU CAN PRACTICE WITH SOME VOCABULARY TO USE WITH THE FUTURE TENSE HERE

Similar Expressions
Another phrase that work this way is Pensar + infinitive:

Pensar + infinitive – Pienso ir a España el verano que viene = I plan to visit Spain next summer. *** Note there is no need for the ‘a’ here. ***

Or we could say Esperar + infinitive:

Esperar + infinitive – Esperamos ir a España el junio que viene = We hope to visit Spain next summer. *** Note again there is no need for the ‘a’ here. ***

Preterito indefinido – Repaso y práctica

Click here for a link to all exercises and reviews of the indefinido. This is probably the best site for practicing the irregular forms.

Another good review here.  And you can practice with some more exercises by clicking here, just scroll down the page until you find the preterit forms exercises

A couple of nice videos that review The Most Irregular Verbs in the Preterite:

Part 1

Part 2

Remember if you want to get the verb forms perfected then repeated practice and drilling is the way to go. Here are plenty more for you to practice with:

Ver-Taal – Again this link will only bring you to a main page but you can scroll or search for the preterite excercises. There are a few to work with.